Notes: In no particular order: iLoVeLoGaN, thankies, and it will get more intense as I write because I'm funny like that. Star-of-Chaos, you just wait until you get about two chapters along, the trouble is only just starting. A.Ceretta, I know that the basic plotline has been done before, but I'm hoping that by adding my own twist to things, it will be interesting enough for people to like. What you should remember is that most of the other fics like this tend to keep things tame and happy-ish, whereas I don't bother. Thank you all for your reviews!
Chapter One
The nutrition bar tasted like cardboard and was as hard as rock and the protein drink tasted, and smelled, like mouldy fruit, but she ate it all anyway. It was her only meal for the day, and as she hadn't fought in four days, the possibility that she would be chosen tonight was strong, so she needed to eat. She, and a couple of others, had been given a special treat of a bruised apple with her meal, so she nibbled at it as she looked around at her cell.
The walls were brick, covered in some form of rock or clay. Whatever the coating was, it wasn't very hard, and she had been able to carve lines in it to keep track of the days using a small hair clip she'd had in her pocket. According to the scratches in the wall, she'd been in the cell for just over twenty seven days-she'd been too injured for the first few days, too confused and lost, to think clearly so the exact number was unknown to anyone except the guards and fight bosses.
Twenty seven days, and she'd fought eight times. From what she learned from the other fighters, the other prisoners, this was a record. The highest amount of fights someone had survived before her was six, and that had been over the span of seven weeks. According to them, the crowd liked her, they kept requesting to see the Rogue fight, so the fight bosses kept putting her in The Cage.
She sometimes thought about losing on purpose, about letting her opponent win. Surely it would be better to die than remain in this agonising hell. But in the end, she couldn't do that. Her pride, her honour, some spark of hope, kept her from fighting at anything but her best. So fight after fight, she came out the victor. She was given a night of luxury-a bath, a warm meal, some bandages and clean water for her injuries, maybe a suture kit if needed, and once, after a particularly good fight that had earned the fight bosses a lot of money, they gave her a thin mattress to sleep on.
And then, when the sun rose, the comforts she had been given would be taken away. She would be back to her pathetic excuse for food and the cold floor to sleep on. They didn't want their best fighter to die anywhere but The Cage, so she was allowed to keep her wounds bandaged, and if there was any hint of infection, she would be examined by the doctor and given the minimal care required.
She was luckier than the other fighters, if they developed an infection, they didn't get treatment, unless they worked for it. There were a limited amount of ways to earn a visit from the medic, and none of them were nice. She didn't know if she felt more pity for the girls, who were constantly subjected to crude talk, threats, and indecent acts, or for the boys, who always found it that much harder to swallow their pride and do what was necessary to earn medical treatment.
She was lucky that she was only subjected to the talking, and being forced to strip and dance for the guards so that they could masturbate as they watched her. It was demeaning, but not as traumatising as the ultimate act. For the first time in her life, she was truly thankful for her mutation.
Still, she had to wonder if she was such a vision of beauty any more. Thanks to her diet, her lean, lightly muscled body had become merely thin, not weak, she still exercised, but thin. She could count two ribs, and almost feel a third. Her hair, normally so thick and shiny, was now lank and slightly greasy, hanging around her face in straggly clumps. She didn't have a brush, and when she was allowed a bath, she was only given a small amount of cheap, generic shampoo, no conditioner. Her cheeks were sunken, her cheekbones, like her collarbones, too pronounced, almost as if they were ready to burst free of the skin covering them.
There was a scar bisecting her eyebrow, from the night she had been captured, and another above her mouth, a small scar that had only required a couple of butterfly stitches at the time. Other than that, she had been relatively lucky-a burn scar on her shoulder, a thin scar on her calf, and a long, thick scar across her stomach from where she had nearly been gutted were the only other imperfections. That scar was one of the oldest, from her very first fight, when she hadn't wanted to kill her opponent. She had remained on the defensive, trying to talk her way out of the situation. Eventually she killed the boy, but she mourned the death for days.
It wasn't until three fights later that she finally realised just what kind of life she had now, and from that day on, she tried to kill her opponent as quickly, and as painlessly as possible. Keep the fights short, that was her main goal when in The Cage, that and to stay alive.
Heavy booted footsteps made Rogue open her eyes, not really sure of when she had closed them. She watched, half hidden in the shadows, as the guard came into view. His name was Kendell, Steven Kendell. He was one of the more sadistic guards, and it was never nice to see him. When she saw him, it either meant a fight, or more often than not, a dance.
He stopped in front of her cell, leering at her from the other side of the bars. One meaty hand caressed the stun baton at his hip, the other gripped one of the hard iron bars. He glanced up, to the sides, and down, checking that the power containers were still active. The PCs were long bars that pulsed dark red light, and they lined all the walls of her cell, meaning that though her powers were still active inside the cell, they could not pass the bars to hurt anyone, or destroy the wall. She wasn't even sure if that would do any good, she suspected that they might be underground, though she never saw any windows to confirm her suspicions.
She waited silently, not moving, not blinking, and was surprised when he stepped back and continued walking. She frowned and quietly got to her feet, stalking to the bars. She pressed herself against the wall and listened. She heard him continue down past more cells, heard him stop once or twice only to move on, until he reached the end of the corridor. She heard him open the cell, but had counted and knew that it was empty. That meant there was a new fighter coming. She wondered who it was. She wondered how long they would last. She wondered if she would kill them.
She heard two more pairs of footsteps, accompanied by a soft, dragging sound, and looked to her right to watch the two other guards carry the new fighter to her cell. She couldn't see much of the girl, just a thick mane of black hair, a slender body, and some very expensive designer jeans. Hn, this girl wouldn't adjust well, Rogue could tell that immediately. The perfect dye-job on her hair, the perfectly exercised body, the expensive jeans, this one hadn't seen a tough day in her life.
Everyone waited for the guards to leave before they started to whisper, keeping their voices soft, so that only the people in the cells surrounding them could hear. Rogue didn't participate in the round of bets being placed, she didn't see the point. The other fighters placed bets on the newbies to keep themselves occupied, to give themselves something to think about, but for Rogue, that wasn't necessary. She had adapted to her life.
She was a fighter, a killer, a source of entertainment for a bunch of rich mutant-haters who probably went to dogfights and things like that. She knew it, and she'd accepted it. There wasn't anything that could change it.